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The Fog (2005 film)
The Fog is a 2005 horror film directed by Rupert Wainwright and starring Tom Welling, Selma Blair and Maggie Grace. It is a remake of John Carpenter's 1980 film of the same name, but this time made more in the vein of a "teen horror film" (it was rated PG-13 whereas the original film was rated R). Both Carpenter and Debra Hill, who co-wrote the original film with Carpenter and produced it, were producers of this version. Plot In 1871, the residents from the island Antonio Bay, off the coast of Oregon are planning to meet with the leader of a colony of lepers named William Blake. The reason for the meeting is that William Blake bought half of Antonio Bay for his people. However, the residents of Antonio Bay, Malone, Castle, Wayne and Williams, double cross them and take all their belongings including their money, and set the lepper ship the Elizabeth Dane on fire, thus killing all aboard the clipper ship. 134 years after the incident, in 2005, the residents of Antonio Bay honor the founding fathers for their act of "defense" of the island. Meanwhile Nick Castle, Spooner and two other fisherman are fishing off the coast of Antonio Bay. They disturb a bag full of valuables such as a pocket watch and a hairbrush. These items were once on the Elizabeth Dane. Nick Castle then has to buy new parts for his fishing boat. On the way he runs into Elizabeth Williams, his girlfriend who had moved away. She gets in his truck and they drive to get new parts while listening to Stevie Wayne, the island's "radio master". On the way to the store something shatters all the windows on Nick,s truck. By then Father Malone arrives and shouts "Conspiracy and Murder!" But Nick and Elizabeth don't know what he's;s talking about. They go to get the part and a homeless man who recovered the pocket watch. She takes a lighter and shows a symbol on the back. One of the three symbols was a set of scales. Meanwhile at the lighthouse Stevie Wayne gets a call from Dan saying he spotted a giant fog bank off the coast. Spooner, Nick's cousin and two young women are partying on Nick's boat. When the fog envelops them the women put their tops back on. Then the ship's engine stops and the gauges break. With the men outside investigating the fog, the women stay inside, frightened of what's happening. The fog creeps inside, and one of the women draws a set of scales on the window. Violence suddenly erupts on the boat, and the young women are both murdered by unknown attackers, and their bodies then come smashing through the windows. Nick's cousin gets stabbed in the eye. Spooner then sees a Clipper Ship in the fog. He hides in the freezer where the fog can't reach. Elizabeth and Nick have sex at Nick's house. Afterwards Elizabeth has a dream about the incident on the Elizabeth Dane. Concerned about the dream, she looks up hallmarks on the internet, but her computer blacks out and the words "DANE" appear on the screen. She then hears a loud knocking at the door. She walks outside and finds nothing, but as she walks down to the beach, she finds the fog. Nick comes after her and takes her back to the house. The next day, news spreads about the disappearance of the Seagrass, Nick's ship. Nick and Elizabeth take a boat onto the sea and find the abandoned Seagrass. Nick finds his cousin's dead body with his eyes stitched shut. He runs back and sees Elizabeth screaming as she raises the anchor and finds the two young women's bodies in a fishing net. They begin to explore the ship and discover that there is half a tank of gas and the engine works fine. Elizabeth goes into the hold and opens the freezer, where she finds Spooner still alive. Once they arrive back at the island, the town mayor, John Malone, the father of Father Malone, suspects Spooner of the murders and tells them that once he thaws out, he better have a convincing story. Elizabeth goes to the library and finds a book full of hallmarks. Inside this book she finds a symbol that has been mysteriously appearing all over, scales. Elizabeth soon finds out that the hallmark that she has been finding is a symbol that represented a trading colony north of Antonio Bay. The residents of the island were infected by an outbreak of Leprosy, and left to burn to death on the ship after being betrayed. Elizabeth also discovers that she is the reincarnation of the woman the leader, Blake, had loved, and upon realizing this, she transforms into her ancestor and disappears with Blake's spirit, much to Nick's horror. Characters Production The film was green lit by Revolution Studios before the script was completed. Tom Welling still had three weeks filming left on the fourth season of his TV series Smallville when he commenced work on The Fog. His co-star Selma Blair joked that they kept two cameras running during Welling's scenes, one for The Fog and one for Smallville. Selma Blair did almost all of her own stunt work for the film, and spent 12 hours in a water tank (with only short surface breaks) for two straight days to shoot her underwater scenes. Although set on an island off the coast of Oregon, location work for the film was shot further up the coast in Canada. It was partially shot in and around Cowichan Bay, British Columbia, and the majority of the beach scenes were filmed in Tofino, British Columbia. The scenes of the town of Antonio Bay were filmed in Fort Langley, British Columbia. StudioCanal, which owns the rights to the original film, assisted in the film's production in exchange for French distribution rights. The original film's makers, John Carpenter and Debra Hill, expressed an interest in remaking the original film on the film's DVD commentary. They are both credited as producers for the remake. It was one of Hill's final projects before her death from cancer in 2005. Reception The film was not screened for critics before its release. Upon its release, it was very poorly received. To date, the film has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 5% and is the 66th worst reviewed film on the website; the site's critical consensus states that "The Fog is a so-so remake of a so-so movie, lacking scares, suspense or originality." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 27 out of 100, based on 16 reviews. The Fog was widely considered an unsuccessful remake of the original movie made in 1980, with the Hollywood Reporter stating that the movie "lacked the scares necessary to satisfy its target audience", and Variety commented that "interest lags between the grisly deaths, and, worse, none of the characters generates rooting interest." The film was rated D- by Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly. Box office In the US, the film grossed a modest $11,752,917 on its opening weekend, but still managed to secure the #1 spot for that weekend due to a general decline in box office revenues at that time (had the film opened with the same amount a year earlier, it would have only made fifth place). It had a final domestic gross of $29,550,869, and a total worldwide gross of $46,201,432. External links *Official website *[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432291/ The Fog] at the Internet Movie Database *[http://www.allrovi.com/movies/movie/v317305 The Fog] at AllRovi *[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fog05.htm The Fog] at Box Office Mojo